Staging a new website. . .can this be done?

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I built a Concrete5 website for a musician on some hosting space donated by another supporter. Since then I have gotten my own hosting account (on Hostgator) and I would like to host the site there.

Since there are a bunch of changes I plan to make for a new unveiling so I'm not concerned about moving the site. I am trying to figure out how I can build and test a new site while the other site stays on line. Since I edit a concrete5 site by going to the main domain I can't figure out how I can do this without taking the existing site out of service. I'm thinking there is a simple way to do this that when I hear it I will say "Well Duh, that's obvious."

I'm accustomed (years ago) to an environment that had development, staging, and production environments.

Wayne

 
kdyer replied on at Permalink Reply
kdyer
We are using two of the sites that I host through Hostgator.
For what you want to do is to create a folder, I used /concrete - yes I have done this until we were ready to take the site live.

Follow this page:
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/installation/moving_a_site...

When you are ready to take the site live, follow the above URL to move the site from /concrete to / for the root.

HTH,

Kent
AFSDMS replied on at Permalink Reply
Thanks Kent,

I'm not clear if this will work for what I need. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my description.

The site I'm developing the new website for is running in production elsewhere.

I would need to build the next generation of the website, I guess in the folder like you suggested, and to be able to connect to it through the web to edit/build it. So, while the existing site is continuing to run in production I would need to be able to connect to the new development site to do the actual ground-up building. Are we talking about the same thing here?

In a nut shell I'm trying to figure out what I would enter in a browser to get me to the development site. The current main site is at BoiseQueen.com and it is hosted on a friend's Hostgator account.

I want to rebuild the site (although a clean move if I could figure out how to do everything in the link you kindly provided) on my Hostgator account. I have the Baby Croc plan that supports multiple subsites.

Does this make any sense?

Thanks for your help.

Wayne
admin replied on at Permalink Reply
It sounds to me like you might be over thinking this. You're thinking about it as if you're building a new version of the same web site (which, in a business sense, you are) but, as far as the internet goes, you're creating a brand new, independent web site with no connection at all to the other one, but that you will later want to use with the same URL as the old site.

I think you need to establish the directory on Host Gator where you eventually want the new site to live, then install C5 in that directory and build the site. While you're building the new site, you will likely need to access it by going to something like accountname.hostgator.com (or whatever default URL Host Gator gives you for the site).

When you're ready to launch the new site you just direct web traffic to it by changing the nameservers on your domain registrar to point to the Host Gator account (Host Gator should be able to walk you through what you need to do and give you the proper settings).

Someone with more technical background in web development than I have can correct me if I'm wrong.
ScottC replied on at Permalink Reply
ScottC
if you are on osx, create the site..then usually at least with dreamhost they will assign a ip address for the new site.

Whenever I am unfortunate enough to have to work on something remotely like that (vs mamp or similar) i will open terminal, edit /etc/hosts (sudo) and map the domainhttp://www.whatever.com to the ip address, then i used dnscacheutil -flushcache or something along those lines and the new site is picked up for me and to everyone else they see the old site.

BASE_URL and DIR_REL aren't always set in new installations, though you certainly can.

I hope that helps
AFSDMS replied on at Permalink Reply
Hi again Kent,

Will this allow me to keep the existing site (V1) running in production on another HostGator account and still be accessible?

So, might I create a "DEV" folder under one of my other websites and install concrete5 referencing that. If that would work I might just bite the bullet and rebuild the site from the ground up in a DEV folder and then do the move to the new location. To do that I have to be able to figure out how to get to the website in the first place so I can then begin editing it with concrete5.

The site was started almost a year ago, predating the recent upgrade to concrete5. I am working to create another website with the latest concrete install and it seems that virtually NONE of the Themes or Add-Ons I want to use work properly in it. I have to do some searching to see what the heck the upgrade path is between versions of concrete!

Thanks for your suggestions.

Wayne
MysteriousCleon replied on at Permalink Reply
MysteriousCleon
As scottspinola said - leave the existing site for a while - it's working, and good for it.

Now install new c5 WHEREVER you want on your hostagor account - on any your url or directory (i.e. youraccount.hostgator.com, or youraccount.hostgator.com/subdirectory or whatever...).

Create a website on that c5 installation, and when everything is ready:
- change nameservers of BoiseQueen.com in that domain admin panel, to your hostagor account nameservers
- point domain to your directory (i.e. youraccount.hostgator.com, or youraccount.hostgator.com/subdirectory or whatever...) in your account admin panel (cpanel)
- find config/site.php (NOT concrete/config/site.php) file in that new site and change in it:
"define('BASE_URL', 'youraccount.hostagor.com');"
to
"define('BASE_URL', 'BoiseQueen.com');"
and if you used subdirectory also change
define('DIR_REL', '/subdirectory');
to
define('DIR_REL', '');
Then domain is pointing your new site, not old one, and concrete is working properly with new domain. Thats all.
Untill you change nameservers old site is working.

You don't need to move anything from one hosting to another, becouse you want old site to be on your friends hosting, and the new one on yours, don't you?